It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

As a young boy, the bespectacled Jiro Horikoshi dreams of flying a plane but when he learns he will be unable to become a pilot due to his poor eyesight, he instead decides to be an aircraft designer. On September 1st 1923 Jiro is travelling by train when the Great Kanto earthquake strikes. He assists fellow passenger Naoko and her maid who suffers an injury. He doesn't meet Naoko again till many years later and the two fall in love but she is suffering from tuberculosis and while they try to find out more...